Release Reviews: Fly With Me: Chanel Cleeton

U.S. Air Force fighter pilot Noah Miller—call sign Burn—loves nothing more than flying hard and fast. When he meets a gorgeous and sassy woman while partying in Las Vegas, he immediately locks on to her.

Jordan Callahan owns a thriving clothing boutique, but her love life is far less successful. Her luck changes when six feet, two inches of sexy swagger asks her to dance and turns her world upside down.

One scorching weekend becomes an undeniable chemistry that they can’t leave in Vegas. But the long distance relationship and their different lives threaten to ground their romance. And when the dangers of Noah’s job become all too real, Jordan learns being with a fighter pilot means risking it all for a shot at love…

This is the start of the new Wild Aces series featuring friends who are fighter pilots. And oh, what sexy, intriguing men these are. This story focuses on Noah "Burn" Miller.

Noah and his friends are hanging out in a Vegas club when he spots Jordan Callahan, a blonde bombshell in Vegas for her sister's bachelorette party. Jordan is tall, curvy, funny, sweet, and sassy. They dance, flirt, and develop an attraction. Jordan is not the usual type of girl that just succumbs easily to his charms and soon he is on the chase. Serious sexual tension leads to scorching hot chemistry and mutual like. But their time in Vegas is limited.

Noah is tall, dark, handsome, sexy, and charismatic. He is used to the military being his life and flying his sole mission. But Jordan draws his attention like no woman he has ever known. When they are together, they just fit in all ways. They are passionate, caring, compatible, and have fun.

But these two have to navigate significant differences in their lives and locations. Long distance is hard. Disappointment and hurt feelings are unavoidable. The future and even the present iareunpredictable. It's hard to hold on and trust in a relationship that seems to keep getting sidelined by missed opportunities and circumstances outside their control. They are not young kids, but mature adults and she has been looking not only for true love, but also stability. And they are both plagued by fears of distance, growing apart, and loss.

Taking a chance is a blind leap with many risks and sacrifices involved. Noah is already sacrificing for his country, but does his military career mean he will lose his real chance at love? And She has her own life and family in Florida, is love worth sacrificing everything she has built to chase him all over the world?

I loved Noah and Jordan together. They had such a fun rapport and hot chemistry. It was so intense that you could almost feel their passion when together and their despair when missing each other. Everything about their situation was complicated except how they felt about each other. And it seemed like this was a pretty accurate representation of the Air Force and how it does affect the lives of those who serve and their loved ones.

I am really intrigued and interested in the side characters: Easy, who hides his troubles under a facade; Thor who has his own past heartbreak; and the older married couple Joker and Dani who set a good example of a military marriage. This is my first book by this author and I will say that I was pulled right into the story with the engaging humor, fast dual point of view changes, and the way her descriptions provided enough details without making it boring. The story had depth, emotion, humor, heartbreak, and it was easy to become attached to all of these characters. I am looking forward to Thor's story in Into the Blue and Easy's in On Broken Wings.

I was gifted a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Noah Miller lives to fly. His fight group is his family, and his focus is on the sky, until he meets Jordan Callahan while partying in Las Vegas.

Jordan owns her own business, but has been less than successful in love. Dating disaster after dating disaster has left her jaded towards the opposite sex.

Both have a change of heart after a steamy night together that quickly turns to a long weekend together. But distance and their widely different careers make it difficult for a relationship to grow.

These two were good characters to watch. Jordan has a good head on her shoulders, even as she wonders how she will find her own match. I liked watching her clear thinking muddle as she got further into her feelings with Noah. Noah is all confident, bossy, and hot in his uniform. He was one of those military heroes who was fun to read as he tried to figure out how to balance the career that had been his focus for so long with a woman he decided he couldn’t live without.

The military details were great: authentic and honest. Life as a military dependent is a challenge, particularly in the flying world, and this book did a great job of giving readers a taste of the real life effects of a military life. And as Noah and Jordan worked towards making things work for them, the transient nature of the military put a huge crimp in their plans.

There were great emotional highs and lows. The long distance struggles got a little tiresome after a while, but having lived that in my own life I know the struggle. As a whole, this book was entertaining. From the bachelorette party opener at the beginning to the decisions they face at the end, what happened in Vegas changed life completely for these two.

Noah has a great group of men in his life. The camaraderie, support, and the strong ties that bind these men together drive so much of what make them who they are. I loved the introduction to Noah’s four-ship and the people in their lives. I am looking forward to more from the Wild Aces, especially Easy (though I’m not quite emotionally ready for that one just yet). Thor is up next and his teaser is the perfect way to keep me wanting more.

I was gifted a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Chapter one

Jordan

There was a time in a woman’s life when she had to accept that wearing a headband made of pink—glittery—illuminated penises was too much. I couldn’t put my finger on the number—and I definitely couldn’t do it after my fourth tequila shot—but I figured that at thirty and still single, bachelorettes had ceased to be a fun rite of passage, and had instead become a wake-up call that if Prince Charming wasn’t coming soon, I’d have to start exploring my options in the amphibian variety.

Of course, it didn’t help that this was my sister’s bachelorette—my cute-as-a-button, too-young-for-wrinkle-cream sister’s bachelorette. Or that she was marrying my high school ex-boyfriend. I didn’t care; I mean we hadn’t been together in over a decade, but the fact that my future brother-in-law had once seen me topless added to the surreal feeling of the whole thing.

I took shot number five like a champ.

“I’m getting married!” Meg screamed for what might have been the fifteenth time that night. Somewhere between dinner at Lavo and partying at Tao, this seemed to have hit her with a vengeance. On anyone else, it would have been annoying; on Meg, it was somehow still adorable.

At twenty-five, she was the baby of the family. A good five inches shorter than me, we shared the same blond hair and brown eyes. We both had curves, but on her, they were bite-size. I was a king-size—tits and ass that could put your eye out—not to mention the pink phalluses bobbing awkwardly on my head.

It had been Meg’s idea to dress up, and I hadn’t been able to disappoint her. So here I was, thirty years old, terminally single, wearing penises on my head, a hot pink barely there tube dress that made me look like an overmammaried Malibu Barbie, and fuck-me Choos that topped me out at six feet. If I ever got married, I was so not doing a bachelorette. Or bridesmaids in hideous dresses. Or arguing with my fiancé over whether we’d serve filet mignon or prime rib. I loved meat as much as the next girl, but the drama surrounding this wedding had my head spinning, and I was just the maid of honor. If I were the bride? I totally got why people eloped.

My parents could do the big wedding with Meg. At least they’d get the budget option with me—if I ever got married at all.

Shot number six came faster than a virgin on prom night.

I wasn’t really even tipsy. I could definitely hold my liquor, but this was Vegas, and everything about tonight screamed excess, and as depressing as it was to be the eldest, even worse, I felt like the mother hen to the group of three Southern girls ready to make the Strip their bitch. It was time to up my game.

I rose from our table and headed over to where Stacey and Amber, my sister’s friends from college, were dancing, determined to kick this feeling inside of me’s ass.

When I’d look back on this evening, and it would play in my mind on repeat for months to come, this would be the moment. Freeze it. Remember it. How often could you say that you could pinpoint the exact moment when your life changed?

I could.

If I had anyone to blame for the wild ride that came next, it was Flo Rida. Because as soon as “Right Round” came over the club speakers, my tequila-fueled body decided it needed to move. It was the kind of song you couldn’t resist the urge to dance to; it made normal girls want to grab a pole and let loose. Okay, maybe just me. But it felt like kismet, like the song played for me, to breathe life into my sad, old self. So I danced, pink penises gyrating and flickering, hips swaying, hair swishing, until my world turned upside down.

Noah

“Dibs.”

I took a swig of Jack, slamming the glass down on the bar.

“You can’t call dibs, asshole. There are four of them.”

Easy shrugged with the same nonchalance that had earned him his call sign and made him lethal behind the stick of an F-16. He lulled you into thinking he was just fucking around. He never was.

“Are you saying I can’t handle four chicks?”

“I’m calling bullshit on that one.”

The guy got more pussy than anyone in the squadron, but a foursome was ambitious even for him.

“Fifty bucks,” he offered, knowing my pathological inability to back down from a challenge.

“Fuck you, fifty bucks. You can’t bang four chicks.”

Easy’s eyes narrowed in a look I knew all too well.

“Watch me.”

We all gave him a hard time for being a princess because his face was a panty dropper, but he could throw down like nobody’s business. Lately, though, this shit had been getting darker and darker. We’d broken off from the rest of the group, Joker had gone back to the hotel to call his wife, and now Easy was drinking like he wanted to die.

The Strip had seemed like a good idea four hours ago, but I was tired and now I just wanted to collapse in the suite we’d booked at the Venetian. I’d flown four sorties leading up to today, each one more demanding than the last. Today’s double turn had topped me out at six flights this week, and my body definitely felt it. I was tired, my schedule screwed six ways to Sunday, and right now I was far less concerned with getting laid than I was with getting more than five hours of sleep.

Our commander, Joker, was on my ass for the squadron to perform well at Red Flag—our international mock war held at Nellis Air Force Base in Vegas. As the squadron’s weapons officer, it was my job to make sure we were tactically the shit. Babysitting F-16 pilots with a hard-on for trouble? Not in my job description. It was really sad when I was the voice of reason.

Sending a bunch of fighter pilots to Vegas for work was basically like putting a diabetic kid in a candy store. We got as much training done as we got tits and ass. And considering we pulled fourteen-hour workdays? That said something.

“It’s a bachelorette party,” I ground out, the subject already hitting way too close to home.

The flash of pain in Easy’s eyes was a punch to the nuts. Shit. It was worse than I’d thought.

“Screwing around isn’t going to change things,” I added, trying to keep any judgment or sympathy out of my tone.

If it were anyone else, I would have minded my own business; but it wasn’t anyone else, it was Easy. He’d been my roommate at the Academy, gotten me through pilot training when I’d struggled, flown out to Vegas when I’d somehow graduated from weapons school.

Easy threw back the rest of his drink. “Be my wingman for ten minutes. I won’t go after the bride. Then you can leave.”

I’d been ready to leave an hour ago.

“You owe me for the twins in San Antonio,” he reminded me.

Shit, I did.

“Ten minutes.”

He nodded.

I turned my attention to the group of girls dancing; they looked young and already well on their way to drunk. I was definitely calling in my marker at a later time.

At thirty-three, I was getting too old for this shit. Most of the squadron was either married or divorced, Easy and I among the few single holdouts left.

It wasn’t that I was opposed to marriage. I’d thought about how it would feel to land after a deployment to a girl who’d throw her arms around me and kiss me like she never wanted to let go, instead of landing to my bros carrying a case of beer. Hell, I saw the way guys climbed out of their jets, their kids running toward them on stubby legs, looking like it was Christmas, their birthday, and a trip to Disney World all rolled into one.

Even a fucker like me teared up.

I wasn’t Easy; I wasn’t trying to screw my way through life. I wanted a family, a wife. But I’d learned the hard way that not many girls were willing to stick around waiting for a guy who was gone more than he was around, who missed holidays and birthdays, who came home for dinner some nights at 11 p.m., and other nights not at all. It was hard to agree to moving every couple years, to deployments that stretched on and on, to remote assignments, and Sorry, honey, this one’s a year, and you can’t come.

I got it. It was a shit life. The kind of life that sliced you clean, that took and took, stretching you out ’til there was nothing left but fumes. But then there were moments. That moment when I sat in the cockpit, when I was in the air, up in the clouds, feeling like a god. When the afterburner roared. The times when we were called to do more, when the trips to the desert meant something, when we supported the mission on the ground. The times when we marked a lost brother with a piano burn and a song. I couldn’t blame Easy for needing to let off steam, the edge was there in all of us, our faithful companion every time we went up in the air and took our lives in our hands.

We flew because we fucking loved it. So I guessed I already had a wife, and she was an expensive, unforgiving bitch—

Fortysomething million dollars of alloy, fuel, and lube that could fuck you over at any given time and felt so good when you were inside her that she always kept you coming back for more.

Eric Jansen—call sign Thor—loves nothing more than pushing his F-16 to the limit. Returning home to South Carolina after a tragic loss, he hopes to fix the mistake he made long ago, when he chose the Air Force over his fiancée.

Becca Madison isn’t quick to welcome Thor back. She can’t forget how he shattered her heart. But Thor won’t give up once he’s set his sights on what he wants—and he wants Becca.

Thor shows Becca that he’s no longer the impulsive boy he used to be, and Becca finds herself irresistibly drawn to him. But will Thor be able to walk away from his dream of flying the F-16 for their love or does his heart belong to the sky?

Originally a Florida girl, CHANEL CLEETON moved to London where she received a bachelor's degree from Richmond, The American International University in London and a master's degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Chanel fell in love with London and planned to stay there forever, until fate intervened on a Caribbean cruise and a fighter pilot with smooth dance moves swept her off her feet. Now, a happily ever after later, Chanel is living her next adventure.

Law school made Chanel realize she'd rather spend her days writing sexy stories than in a courtroom, and she hasn't looked back since. An avid reader and hopeless romantic, she's happiest curled up with a book. She has a weakness for handbags, her three pups, and her husband.